As a child meandering in her own imagination, I remember getting super excited to enter a machine which would wave me to and from space. Around the age of six, I recall hitting the top button in the elevator. I closed my eyes and told my parents that in a few days I was going to fly back from space in this miraculous machine: an elevator. It had never occurred to me how intriguing and complex this miraculous machine is, how a simple rectangular shaped prism could move up, down and stop at certain levels.
First built by German inventor Werner von Siemens is a vertical transporting vehicle that efficiently moves people or goods between floors in a building. The most ubiquitous elevator design is the roped elevator, where the car is raised and lowered by steel cables.
The “brain” or control system of the elevator lives up at the very top of the elevator shaft. The ropes and metal cables are looped around the car and a pulley, which are connected to an electric motor. The motor’s task is to provide a nudge to allow the elevator to push the balance one way or the other. This is known as “collective control” or “the elevator algorithm,” which is a code to program the elevator’s motion. Moreover, engineers also developped a slew of tricks, of having two cars communicating with each other. For instance, when car 1 is at the highest level, car 2 may be resting at the lobby.
Now, you’re probably wondering, what if the ropes snap, or the motors suddenly stop working. Every elevator system is implemented with a safety break, which was the great innovation that Elisha Graves Otis made back in the 1860s. “Each car ran between two vertical guide rails with sturdy metal teeth embedded all the way up them. At the top of each car, there was a spring-loaded mechanism with hooks attached. If the cable broke, the hooks sprung outward and jammed into the metal teeth in the guide rails, locking the car safely in position.”
The next time you walk into an elevator, appreciate how a simple-looking rectangular prism can get you from the first floor to the tenth floor in a matter of minutes.
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